


among the reeds, among the rushes

by philthestone



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, and then that wasnt canon so it turned back into 'unpublished girl gang fic' only now, g and destroy jimmy figgis', its published, lady friendships are the most important part of this show folks, originally titled 'unpublished girl gang fic' and THEN titled 'amy and rosa form a girl gan, very slightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 11:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10593273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: “I’m just saying,” says Gina, camped on Amy’s couch and painting her nails for the tenth time that week. “Jimmy-boy doesn’t know who he’s up against. Your nerd-smarts, my dazzling good looks, Rosa’s crowbar collection, and also my not-nerd smarts? Dumb-dumb won’t know what hits him.”Amy copes, and waits, and holds the hands of her friends.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WOW CAN U BELIEVE IM STILL WRITING B99 FIC anyways i just really needed a lady solidarity fic bc b99's female characters are so wonderful and all support each other so well and i am always emo about it. it makes me feel safe.
> 
> title's from joanna newsom's "only skin", which is one of my favorite ever songs and imo has some really good Content on womanhood
> 
> more notes at the end, and reviews are the hardcore drawing of beowulf on rosa's cast.

About a week after Jimmy Figgis calls Jake in the bar, Rosa and Gina help Amy move all of her things out of her apartment and into a new one; just a little bit bigger, just a little roomier, a place to start afresh and to put the label of _theirs_ onto – as well as she can, with the other half of that plural being miles and miles away.

It’s not part of the plan, initially. Which is a bit of a ridiculous thing to say, because that makes it sound as though _any of this_ is according to some _plan_ , some _list_ , some organized trajectory that Amy can refer to in times of doubt.

Everything, quite frankly, is in chaos. So Amy moves. 

She’s never been particularly good at dealing with the cold. The warm May sun is beating down on the steaming pavement outside, right after an early-morning rain shower, and it’s terribly unfair that she’s stuck in this building, fingertips and toes tingling from the blast of the over-compensating air conditioning. This is one of the many things she’s come to blame on Jimmy Figgis in the past seven days. She has a list; everything from missing boyfriend to burnt toast. 

Amy doesn’t mean to be brusque with Agent Larson from the FBI, sat at the table in front of her. Practically, Larson is their one direct link to Field Marshal Haas, Jake and Holt’s handler, and offending her is the last Amy should be doing. Theoretically, Larson could one day help Amy’s career trajectory be nudged in the right direction, and jeopardy of that sort of thing is always unwise.

She doesn’t mean to, but, well – it kind of happens anyway.

“– Understand that you’re both very close to this case,” Larson is saying, leaning forward slightly. She looks a tad apprehensive, a crease between her thick eyebrows, and Amy’s not sure if it’s out of genuine concern for their emotional well-being or if it’s because Rosa is sitting beside Amy, curly hair a little wild and leather jacket definitely of the informal variety, which means that there’s probably a bloodstain on there somewhere.

They’ve been working for the past three days straight. Amy realizes suddenly that she hasn’t actually left the Nine-Nine the entire time. The briefing room couch isn’t an unfamiliar bed, to her maybe even more so than to Rosa; there’s a bathroom right down the hall; the vending machines are full of food, really; and she has a spare change of clothes, pantsuit and all, in her locker, in addition to the XXXL hoodie that she and Jake used to share on overnighters, which probably used to belong to the Sarge and has been hanging around the precinct since roughly the year 2007. And whenever they run out of coffee, Hitchcock and Scully valiantly volunteer to run down to the bodega down the street and replenish the supply.

“Detective Santiago,” says Larson, and Amy truly doesn’t mean to be brusque, _really_ she doesn’t. “I’ve been consulting with my contacts on this case, and reading your file. It’s becoming apparent to me that it would be in the best interest of all involved if you moved apartments.”

There is a beat.

“Excuse me,” says Amy. “What.”

“Figgis has men everywhere,” elaborates Larson. “Surely by now, he knows exactly what your connections are to Detective Peralta and Captain Holt –”

“Excuse me,” is all that Amy seems to be managing at this point. “ _What_.”

Larson raises and eyebrow and looks unimpressed. She leans back in her chair, and Amy watches her braids spill backwards over her shoulder and brush against the wood of the seat – minute movements catching her attention even as her chest is suddenly empty and screaming, drowning, all at once.

It’s irrational, Amy knows this, but they had a _plan_. Or at least, _she_ did, _she_ had it all planned out, she outlined every milestone in her head during the car ride over from the airport, how they’d go house hunting and what she’d pack in which boxes and how they could use that nice purple tape she bought from Staples just last month for the labels.

She can _not_ do this now. 

She _won’t_.

“Nobody knew Detective Diaz was engaged to Pimento,” says Larson; Amy gets the distinct impression that she’s avoiding Rosa’s eye. Rosa makes a funny growling sound beside Amy, which makes Larson’s eye-contact thing mostly understandable. “You, however – Figgis knows who you are. I can guarantee he does.”

“I can take care of myself,” Amy hears herself say, fingers digging into fabric of her pants, over her thighs. The spots where her nails bite into her skin through the cotton-polyester blend feel whitehot and icecold at once, and she has to fight to maintain her breathing. She is hyper aware of Rosa’s movements beside her, and the other woman has stiffened, rather abruptly.

Larson’s eyes seem to soften. “I have absolutely zero doubt in my mind that you can, Detective,” she says. Her fingers move forward to straighten one of the forms on her desk – probably super important FBI stuff, a part of Amy’s brain suggests, even as her fingers dig more urgently into her thighs. “I’ve talked to the Commissioner and my superiors and they’re doing everything in their power to bring Figgis in as fast as possible. But for your own safety –”

“With all due respect, Agent Larson,” says Rosa from beside her, and Amy swallows back her stumbling words ( _you can’t make me move without him_ ) and thinks that she has never been more grateful for Rosa Diaz in her entire life. Rosa pauses, straightens up, and frowns. 

“Actually, you know what. Who cares about respect.” Larson’s eyebrows shoot up. “We’ve been detectives in the field for almost ten goddamn years. Santiago over here has seen some shit. So have I. We’ve put away so many assholes, I’m sure half of them are sitting around plotting to kill us right now.”

Rosa leans forward, her arms coming to rest on the table in front of her. Amy catches one of her curls coming loose and bouncing upwards as she does.

“We know what the _hell_ we’re doing,” says Rosa, her voice low and rock-hard and cutting, and Larson seems to recoil.

There’s a beat, where Amy can hear the ticking of the clock on the wall fill up the tense silence.

“Detective Santiago,” Larson says finally, sitting up a little straighter and clasping her hands in her lap. “It’s your decision, is all I’m saying. I’d recommend that you at least have a backup safehouse, at any rate.”

Amy inhales. Swallows. Curls her hands into fists on her lap.

They leave the building, and the warm air outside fills her lungs, and Rosa stops just before the car because Amy has started trembling.

Rosa’s hand on her arm is matter-of-fact and grounding.

“Thanks,” says Amy, her voice coming out a bit odd. She blames the sudden temperature change. “For – you know.”

Rosa shrugs. “Course.” And then: “You gonna do it?”

Amy uncurls her fists. 

( _I love you. So much_.)

**

Putting all of Jake’s stuff into boxes and carrying it to her car is not as difficult nor as emotional as she expected it might be, given the circumstances. Organizing things has always given her a sense of stability and purpose, from when she was a teenager with two laminated folders, one pink and one orange, mapping out the entirety of her next six years of education. Amy folds all the clothes that he did not take with him precisely and neatly – halved, side, side, and another fold – her fingers steady and her movements deliberate as she places them into the other half of a box containing her own things. There are so many articles of clothing – and little trinkets, and books and movies and Amy’s hairbrush and toothpaste, the deodorant Jake uses and even some of his old receipts – scattered and intermingled with each other between apartments. As though slowly, without either of them realizing it, both apartments had amalgamated into one homogenous whole, the little things that define each of them interspersed across the space between the buildings.

He’s not there to move with her, and she promises him, silently and in her own head, that she’ll leave the true unpacking, the redecorating and – and everything that makes a home a _home_ –

She’ll leave those for when he gets back, she swears, this time out loud, into the pitch black of her empty bedroom, lying alone in bed at night.

Their mattress is the only thing about the room that is familiar to her, right now – two Jake and Amy-shaped dents in its springs and feathers, and at night Amy presses her face against the pillow on her side and is thankful that moving house was a necessity, borne of the ever-present threat of Figgis and her close ties to the investigation ( _to him_ ), because were it anything else she does not want to parse the thought of doing this without him. The bare ceiling above her seems to return her exhausted, blind staring, and she shifts, feeling the soft sheets under her fingers.

(Briefly, she wishes that she could stay with her parents, and sleep in her girlhood bed – have the twinkling, peeling glow-in-the-dark constellations above her lull her to sleep.)

She fetches her favorite cinnamon-pear lotion from Jake’s cramped shower and tucks it into one of the boxes, and as she’s twisting the cap from a permanent marker to label the box as _toiletries_ , she pauses, and reaches back into the box full of clothing. Jake’s tattered old hoodie is soft to the touch and worn from many years of use, and he doesn’t wear it anymore anywhere outside the house – but it’s careworn and blue and there’s a funny ache in Amy’s chest when her hand is smelling of him when she removes it. She can see it clearly in her mind’s eye, all those years that it accompanied them on stakeouts and two-day grinds and evenings at Shaw’s, into dumpsters and in the dappled spring sunlight in front of the hot dog stand outside the precinct.

She slips it on, her thumb fiddling its way through the hole at the seam of the sleeve, and continues packing.

**

Every July fourth since Amy can remember, she’s sat in her parents’ backyard, chorizo sausages on the barbeque, watching Carlos and Manny and the twins bicker in furious whispers about whether or not they can get away with sneaking out and setting off fireworks.

Amy hasn’t told any of her siblings, or her parents. She says to her mother, over the phone in a quiet, tired voice, that Jake is on assignment and she’s not allowed to spill details. To Danny and Ed, she says _undercover_ , and the twins gasp excitedly, as though that’s something to be proud and excited about. In another life, Amy thinks, it would be.

Raphe sounds concerned over the phone, his deep voice stretched and insistent. _Don’t worry, Mimi. Back before you know it, eh?_ Manny is sympathetic, Carlos almost angry – _they just made him go? Just like that?_ \- Julian, a sergeant in Upper East Side, gives her a look that Amy feels is far too suspicious for his own safety, over the shockingly good Skype connection on her laptop.

She almost tells Luis – _almost_.

Every fiber in her being is screaming at her that it’s too dangerous, too risky to get them involved in this when they’re not already marked. There are people, Amy knows, loved ones who have to be extra careful – Terry told her, the other night over the coffee maker in the break room, that Kevin will be staying with his family when he returns from sabbatical. But Amy herself is still in Figgis’s periphery, she knows ( _she thinks – she_ dares _him_ ), and the idea of telling her family even a little bit of the truth leaves a sweet-sour taste in her mouth, saliva pooling under her tongue.

She told Luis, the last time. She _told_ him about the Iannucchis, past midnight on her couch with her head tucked into his shoulder, stomach aching with something she didn’t want to fully understand. Luis has been drying tears under the hundred-and-one Dalmatians quilt on her bed for as long as she can remember, chasing away nightmares; he’s shared ice cream cones and the muddied pond in the park down the street from their house, and he’s the brilliant smile after she graduated college with an honours degree. His voice is soft and jittery over the phone, very different from its usual mellow, and Amy _almost_ tells him.

“Everything’s fine, _ñaño_. Don’t worry.” She can hear the lie in her own words, and knows that Luis can sense it too. She thinks about telling him, _No pigeon selfies while Jake’s away_.

Luis is quiet for a moment on the other side of the line.

“Luis?” She takes a deep breath. “Do you trust me?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Do you trust me, Luis?”

“ _I – yeah, Mimi, ‘course I do_.”

Amy bites down on her lip, sinking down onto their mattress – the mattress that’s still not been set up with a bedpost around it, just centered against the wall in the bedroom, high enough off the ground that Amy can pretend that she’s spent time putting her new house together.

“It’s going to be okay,” she repeats, and can hear her favorite older brother breathing softly.

“ _Alright,_ ” he says, and she thanks God for him a little more. And then, as though on impulse: “ _Stay safe_.”

Amy swallows around her suddenly-too-thick tongue and nods, forgetting that he can’t see her.

**

She visits Karen two days after she’s officially finished moving apartments.

(She thinks that she keeps putting off the thought that she’s _moved in_ , delaying the fact that she has to accept that Jake isn’t here to do it with her as long as she can. Gina gives her knowing looks each time she declares she has some new item of furniture to re-adjust; Rosa sighs; Charles and Terry enthusiastically offer to help. More often than not, Charles ends up making her iced cucumber tea in her ( _their_ ) kitchen nook while Terry does all the heavy lifting.)

That Saturday, Amy takes the subway, and puts on Gina’s largest pair of sunglasses. The old sunhat she used to wear to the beach as a college student is dug up from the back of her closet, floppy brim tidied and straightened, and Amy’s stomach doesn’t unclench until the gorgeous front door to the old, small house is closed behind her. Her vice-like grip on her phone, tucked away in her dress pocket (it’s _summer_ , after all, and Amy thanks every ingrained female need within her to buy pocket-containing sundresses the previous autumn) only relaxes when Karen wraps her arms around Amy’s shoulders and tucks Amy’s head against her neck. It’s suddenly and jarringly so similar to Amy’s own mother in hugging methodology that Amy has to take a deep breath and swallow hard against the abrupt lump in her throat.

She doesn’t know what they’ve told Karen – if she’s been considered a security risk, or if she’s being kept in the dark for her own safety, or – or _what_ , and the part of Amy that is loath to break any rules pushes up against her throat for a moment.

She can’t tell her own family – there are so many of them, so large and sprawling, and they are not yet as caught up in this as they could be. They’re outside of even the sidelines; they’re _safe_.

Karen, her loose blue shirt covered in swirling autumn-coloured patterns and her earrings wooden and dangling, wrapping her arms tightly around Amy in the foyer of her house, is another matter entirely.

Karen releases her, and the older woman’s smile is as warm and genuine as it was the last time Amy saw her. There’s an undercurrent of confusion – in the slight tilt of her head, and the quirk of her eyebrows. Her hair is tied up in a messy knot at the top of her head, glasses perched on her nose and what Amy swears is a smear of yellow paint on her left cheek.

She smells like the matzo ball soup Jake makes sometimes; warm and savory and seeping into Amy’s bones.

“So there’s this guy,” says Amy, pretending that her voice doesn’t catch on the last syllable. For a moment, it feels like her brain has detached from her body, and she doesn’t need to overthink the movement of her mouth around the words, or the reasons propelling her presence here. “Named Jimmy Figgis.”

Karen’s hand has slid down from Amy’s shoulder and has tangled fingers with hers, hanging between them. Something in her expression shifts: _understanding_.

“Let’s go sit in the kitchen,” she says, and her voice is soft.

They sit at the table by the makeshift medicine cabinet that Karen had led her to last time, and Amy is reminded of the knowing glint in the older woman’s eye as she instructed Amy to perch herself on the counter while she hunted from something useful. Amy had blurted that she didn’t really need a laxative, her cheeks burning, but Karen had only laughed – a full, rich, happy sound that made something in Amy’s chest unconstrict.

Karen pauses to stir at something on the stove, and moves a large sheet of paper covered in bright strokes of paint over to the adjacent counter, and Amy presses her hands against the table.

When Karen eventually sits down, Amy’s words get stuck in her throat again. Maybe it’s because of her week-long stint as a pregnant lady (“Pregnancy really opens a man’s eyes,” says Jake’s exaggerated, too-grave voice in her head), and maybe it’s because of the way Karen hugged her (her own mother’s warmth and floral print shirt bright in her mind’s eye), but Amy cannot fathom the idea of Karen – of anyone’s mother – _not knowing_. It’s criminal, it’s something that Amy wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy; to think your child dead, or to live in uncertainty, or even to wake up one day and be told you’ve been lied to, about something so intimately _yours_. 

And yet, looking at this woman now, with laugh lines around her eyes and the smudge of paint on her cheek – who Amy knows, without a doubt, carries a strength under her bigbright warmth that Amy only hopes she herself can one day cultivate – Amy’s courage deserts her.

Karen watches her for a moment, eyes warm and caramel and familiar. She watches, and Amy swallows three times, until her mouth is dry, until she feels the air go down her throat instead of saliva. She was doing so well, and now the words are stuck.

“Did Jake ever tell you,” Karen says suddenly, the corners of her lips twitching, “about how he used to think he could speak some kind of obscure turtle language? Graham Crackers – the turtle, you know – he was always talking to him, but it wasn’t English. I don’t think I ever actually figured out what it was, maybe it was Roger’s fault, honestly – he’s never told you this story?”

Amy’s fingers unfurl slightly against the kitchen table top. An image springs suddenly to her mind, of a miniature version of Jake with a head full of flyaway curls talking intently to a turtle.

Amy isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or cry.

“No,” she manages. “No, he never told me.”

“Well,” says Karen, “it was _very_ cute. Weird, sure, but cute. D’you want anything to drink, sweetheart? There’s some lemonade in the fridge, I think.”

There is a sliver of resignation in her voice, a tiny undercurrent of pain – weaving its way under the warm melody of her words. Amy’s chest twists, her stomach dropping – but something is still pressing up against her throat, traitorous, and so she nods.

“Lemonade would be great.”

Karen smiles, cheeks dimpling. “And I can show you pictures! Oh, we’ll have so much fun, I’ll tell you all the embarrassing stories, it’ll be like a lunch date – you’ll have to tell me all about everyone else. How’s Charles doing, I’ve always loved Charles – and Gina, has she dyed her hair again? Jake tells me these things, of course, but it’s always good to have another perspective, you know.”

Her hand is still covering Amy’s. The lemonade is sweet and crisp and too-cold against Amy’s tongue, but everything about Karen is warm.

**

The next week, Amy brings Rosa with her.

They’re working a run-of-the-mill string of robberies together, like everything is normal, or something. They’ve tracked down one lead so far – to an apartment in Bed-Stuy, and Amy had spent a moment digging around a pair of decrepit bookshelves before Rosa yelled from the other room that she’d found a body. Amy’s gut boils with anger the whole drive back to the precinct, fingers digging into the cracked leather of the car’s seats so viciously that her nails worsen the already present damage. Beside her, Rosa is silent, glaring at the road. Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

(The man had two bullets in his head, the blood sprayed on the floor like a halo. Rosa threw a broken chair leg across the room and nearly slammed her fist into the wall, and Amy had to focus on keeping her mind from screaming, _That could be Jake_ , or something equally unhelpful.)

Later, as Rosa is penning in the paperwork in the desk across from Amy (they’ve all moved around, and Amy isn’t sure that it’s helping or it’s only making her feel more off-kilter –more like this is some kind of surreal, alternate reality), Amy swallows and taps against the table in front of her softly with the tip of her pen.

Rosa looks up. Amy can see the corner of her eye where her eyeliner’s smudged at the end of a long day.

“D’you,” says Amy. “D’you want to – I visited Karen, two days ago. I – could you – I want to go again, but –”

Rosa pauses, and Amy watches her jaw move, just barely. Her fingers are tight around the cheap ballpoint pen.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sure, yeah.”

In the time it takes for Karen to give Rosa a big hug, arms wrapping solidly around the other woman and rubbing against her back, Amy takes a moment to look around the hallway, to absorb the space around her. The last time she was there, she didn’t think to take her sunglasses off until they’d gotten halfway down the hallway, and there seemed to be an ebb and flow of anxiety around her – less when Karen finally sat down, but less, still, now that Rosa is here with her.

The walls are filled with Jake – photographs covering the paint job, the furniture, the wallpaper. Some are with Karen and some alone, always smiling and gap-toothed up at the camera. Amy’s eyes catch one perched on a table in the corner, a child with laughing eyes and flyaway curls pressing a kiss to the cheek of an old woman with Karen’s high cheekbones and greying hair.

Amy tears her eyes away from the pictures in time to watch Karen bring her hands up around Rosa’s coarse dark curls, exclaiming in delight.

“Oh, they’re just as beautiful as I remember them, so thick and lovely, oh – _Rosa_ , I’ve missed you.”

This last part is said in a softer voice, and Amy, who knows that Rosa has met Karen before, tilts her head. Shocking as it is that Rosa would let _anyone_ touch her hair, the oddly guarded, “Hi, Karen,” that Rosa gives now is a little more expected, her chin drawing closer into her neck and her shoulders tight. She doesn’t seem to want to meet Karen’s eye, something that is odd to Amy more so than the willingness to have her curls played with; even at her most socially uncomfortable, Rosa Diaz resorts to intimidation tactics, to making herself the tallest person in the room. She doesn’t _shrink_.

This – this perfunctory clearing of her throat and the stiff position of her arms drawn close to her sides – it’s different and unlike her and Amy takes a step closer to Rosa, one of her hands tightening around the strap of the purse slung over her shoulder. In time with Amy’s movement, Karen pulls her hands away, not hesitant but fluid, purposeful. She takes a step back; Amy watches, almost like she’s privy to something precious and secret, rare as the tiny purple flowers she sometimes sees at the very end of March, peaking up through the still-frozen ground.

Karen’s hands have positioned themselves on her hips in a gesture achingly familiar, and as Amy looks between her and Rosa, something seems to spark in the older woman’s eye.

“Um,” says Rosa, her perusal of the picture on the other end of the hall forcedly casual (Amy’s eyes widen as she recognizes Gina’s gingery hair and dazzling grin; a feathery pink boa is wrapped around her skinny neck, and she’s in the process of giving an ice-cream covered Jake, who is pulling a face, what appears to be a noogie. Amy blinks a couple times. A voice at the back of her head wonders if she could get away with wheedling the framed photo off of Karen to take home with her). “So, uh – should we, go to the living room, or what.”

Amy turns back to hear Karen give a firm and decisive “ _Hm_.”

(Her voice is declarative and loud and buoyant as her son’s, and Amy feels a surge of affection in her heart.)

“Rosa Diaz,” (and Rosa’s head snaps up) “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You are not allowed to feel guilty in this house.” Karen’s chin has moved upwards with her eyebrows. Amy’s own eyes widen further, flicking back to Rosa, who has tensed up completely, now, and is once again deliberately staring at the floor. “Rosa,” Karen repeats, gentler this time. A step forwards, and she stops, her hands drawing back; it’s evident, Amy thinks, that she wants to give Rosa another hug, but Karen sighs instead, and tilts her head again, letting her hands drop in front of her. Finally, she says, quietly:

“There’s some leftover blue cake in the pantry if you want.”

Rosa clears her throat and looks up, her eyes for the first time meeting Karen’s.

Karen is smiling, a soft and gentle thing, very slightly crooked. Rosa’s mouth quirks; she nods, and Amy watches as some of the tension seems to bleed from her shoulders.

“Blue cake, huh?”

“Oh, you do remember,” says Karen. “It was always the fan favorite.” Rosa’s lips have curled upwards into a tiny smile, and Karen turns to Amy, moving backwards through the hall and towards the living room. Amy and Rosa follow, Amy glancing over at her friend every few steps; there’s still a slight crease to her eyebrows, but there also seems to be an ease to her posture and movements, now – a comfort that suddenly appeared after Karen’s words that Amy doesn’t think she’s really ever seen Rosa exhibit before outside of a few select places.

A familiarity with the walls and colours and space.

“I was going to make lasagna for you two,” Karen is saying over her shoulder, “but it burned, I was in the middle of a crafting project, trying to make something for my kids – you know, you can make flowers from tissue and paint, it’s very cute – but, oh, anyway honey, blue cake, in the pantry, I made it a few nights ago. There are a couple Danishes too, I think, from the store? The one on Flatbush? They might be stale, though –” She plumps up one of the pillows on the couch and reaches over to give Amy a somewhat clumsy pat on the shoulder. “I tried soup again the other night and _that_ worked out fine, but the lesbians across the street invited me over for dinner so I couldn’t go empty _handed_ – just sit down right there, sweetheart –”

Amy sinks down onto the couch across from Rosa, a grin tugging at her lips. Karen turns at the entrance to the kitchen, hand knocking absently against the doorway.

“Rosa, do you still take you coffee black?” There’s a small smile in her face, the corners of her eyes creased liberally with laugh lines. “Coffee and some cake, hmmm? For both of you?”

“Coffee,” says Rosa, “would be great. Karen.”

She’s grinning, too; Amy feels herself exhale, any apprehension she’d felt about visiting Karen a second time dissolving into the air with her breath. The charged atmosphere of Amy’s own thoughts and feelings in the kitchen the week before is gone, replaced this time by Rosa’s solid presence across from her and Karen’s butter-yellow warmth, filling up the patterned, picture-cluttered space of her small house.

**

It’s an unusually cold day in August when Sophia Perez dumps her cappuccino on the Vulture’s head.

Of course, in any other circumstance, Amy would see this as one of the most entertaining spectator sports on the planet. Within seconds, she and Rosa would have teleported themselves to the smooth stone steps leading up to the Major Crimes building, a popcorn machine in hand, calling Gina to bring them some extra caramel sauce. They would watch in delight as the brown liquid twisted through the air in slow-motion, splashing down positively scalding onto the greying crown of the Vulture’s head, delighting in the grotesque face he would inevitably make. Watching Sophia Perez – five-foot-nothing, stiletto-wearing, best-DA-in-Brooklyn Sophia Perez – deliberately spill her coffee on Keith Pembroke’s head would be nothing less than the most entertaining moment of Amy Santiago’s life. 

(It’s expensive coffee, too – some kind of fancy Italian thing that Amy supposes lawyers can actually afford.)

As it is, Amy _doesn’t_ pull out Gina’s favorite brand of caramel popcorn, nor does she sit on any steps; she’s too busy ignoring Pembroke’s obnoxious, oily voice, carrying over her head and leaking into her ears even as she deliberately continues her way down the front steps of the Major Crimes building, eyes trained on the ground. 

“– seen your boy toy around lately! You gotta be feeling some of that three-month itch, right Santiago? Looking for some external activity, _mamasita_?”

Amy grits her teeth and continues walking, her fingers aching where the strap of her purse is cutting into them. Rosa is still in the building, wrapping things up with one of their contacts there, a lead on a bakery in Williamsburg. She’d hoped Pembroke wouldn’t see her as he passed her leaving the building, but her luck probably ran out sometime around Figgis’s first phone call; The Vulture had actually stopped on the concrete steps and swivelled around, leering.

She inhales, deeply, counting to ten, and when she looks up, she nearly stumbles on a step. Sophia’s eyes are wide as she recognizes Amy’s face, feet faltering in her brisk trot up the steps, also on her way into the building. Her customary coffee is clutched in her left hand, her phone in her right. Her makeup is done as immaculately as Amy remembers it; her hair is as glossy and thick.

If Amy had time to feel the old, familiar swoop of self-consciousness, she’s sure it would have happily dropped through her stomach under her jacket. But the Vulture’s voice is pelting her back like stones, and all she can do when she meets Sophia’s eyes is to give a desperate, pleading look of agony.

 _Fantastic_.

But Sophia really hasn’t changed; she still has the whip-sharp spark in her eyes, complimenting her coffee and her brilliant smile, and it momentarily morphs into the liquid warmth of sympathy at the Vulture’s _mamasita_ , loud and grating on the ears.

Amy wonders how many other unlikely women have bonded across stone steps to the universal dulcet tones of catcalls.

“Maybe he got transferred for being such a loser, Santiago!” The Vulture’s still going strong; Amy’s refusal to answer only seems to be egging him on. “Peralta always was a big pussy, but I guess you’re into that! Or is he even still around? His big white ass probably just up and _left_ –”

Later, Amy will begrudgingly admit to Gina that it was a sort of out-of-body experience, as though she hadn’t the control of her own limbs. To Rosa, she’ll describe the rush and roar in her ears, the blur of her vision, and watch as the other woman grins approvingly. Now, Amy doesn’t realize that she’s punched Keith Pembroke in the nose until she’s staring at him laying on his back on the concrete steps, clutching at his nose and howling.

Her fist is throbbing in the dry late-summer air.

“What the hell!”

 _Oh, God_. 

“What the _hell_!” 

His voice has risen an octave; _Oh,_ God _._

“I’ll report you for this, Santiago! I’ll report you –” 

_Ooooh, God._

“What the _f_ –!”

Amy is frozen on her feet, eyes wide with horror and throat closing up with the realization that she just punched a technically-superior officer in the nose in broad daylight, _in public_ , when the heavens open and the angels start singing.

In _Sophia Perez’s_ voice.

As she, her heeled feet only a step above the Vulture’s sprawled-out figure, quite simply tips her cup of fancy expensive fresh hot Italian cappuccino directly over his head.

“ _Oh_ , my _gosh!_ I am so _sorry_ – what a _klutz_ , I can’t believe I _did_ this – can you believe I was so _clumsy_!”

Over the Vulture’s renewed howls, Sophia’s eyes lock onto Amy’s a second time, flashing; something like solidarity, in their gold spark and the quirk of her lip. Amy doesn’t have the time to wonder whether or not she heard everything he was saying, whether or not she put the pieces together with that whip-smart mind of hers, whether or not she cares, whether or not any of that is even _important_ right now, because she’s leaned over and yanked the Vulture to his feet, swiping at his face unnecessarily firmly to wipe the coffee off while maintaining a steady stream of loud, high-pitched apologies.

“Ge – gerroff, God, lady! Stop touching my face! Get outta here!”

(Amy wishes vaguely that it wouldn’t be supremely inappropriate to pull out her phone and film the entire thing; Pembroke’s voice is two octaves higher than usual. Probably because of the blood on his chin and the coffee pinking his scalp, Amy thinks.)

“Oh, but _surely_ you’d let me make it _up_ to you –”

“What the hell, lady! No! Santiago!” His voice booms, sudden and jarring, and Amy feels her fists clench on impulse. “This is your fault! I’ll get you back for this, you b –”

“You’ll do no such thing,” interrupts Sophia’s voice smoothly, her fingers closing tightly around Pembroke’s wrist and causing him to yelp in surprise. “Unless you want me to help her file charges against you for sexal harrassment.” She tilts her chin. “I’m kind of a really great lawyer, you know?”

Pembroke gapes.

Amy, to her credit, doesn’t quite _gape_ , but stares.

Sophia gives Pembroke a sunny smile. “All clear then? Awesome! And you said you didn’t want me to reimburse you or anything, that’s _very_ kind of you.” She pats his cheek twice and turns back around toward the building, heels clicking, ascending the last few steps and breezing past a very startled looking Rosa as she enters the building.

In a flash, Rosa has shoved past the Vulture and is pulling Amy roughly along by the arm, swivelling to face her only once they’ve reached their squad car. Amy is still in a sort of dazed trance, barely aware of the intermingling traffic noise and birdsong in the city block around her; a lock of hair has slipped out of her ponytail and is trailing behind her, caught in the light breeze.

“What’d Leslie say?” she hears herself asks breezily, steadying on her feet. Rosa’s eyes narrow, her hand still gripping Amy’s arm.

“What the _hell_ , Santiago,” hisses Rosa. “Was that _Perez_?”

“I – I don’t know,” manages Amy. “I think I dreamed the whole thing.”

“ _Sophia Perez_ dumped her _coffee_ –”

“On the Vulture’s head, yes,” says Amy, still disbelieving. “I think I’m losing my mind, Rosa. What’d Leslie say?”

“Never mind what Leslie said!” Rosa rolls her eyes, so very reminiscent of Gina that Amy has to stop herself from raising an eyebrow. “ _Perez_! Jesus Christ.”

Amy wonders if Rosa’s _Jesus Christ_ is directed towards Sophia, the Vulture, or Amy herself. She’s not entirely sure that she wants to know.

“He was just – he was –”

“Wait a second,” says Rosa, her eye narrowing dangerously even as her fingers tighten on Amy’s arm. “Pembroke – did _you_ punch him, Santiago?”

Amy inhales. Exhales. Wonders if it would be awkward to send Sophia a friend request on Facebook. 

“In the nose,” she confirms, blinking a little bit. “C’mon, Rosa, I’ll tell you all about it in Babylon.”

(She wishes that she could tell Jake, because she can picture him clearly, bent over double and wheezing with laughter. Her heart aches, but she can ignore it mostly-successfully when Rosa gives her a huge, wolfish grin, perched on the edge of the secret bathroom’s sink, and when Gina howls and yells, “YAS, BITCH,” at the perfumed ceiling above them, and when Sophia accepts her friend request and immediately sends her a thumbs-up emoji over instant messenger.)

**

August bleeds into the first days of September and Rosa gets shot in the arm.

It’s not a bad wound – just a graze, really, cutting through her jacket and splintering into the plaster wall behind her. Rosa swears, louder than Amy’s ever heard her, and throws the nearest hard object (a stapler) at the perp’s head. 

She misses; he jumps out the fire escape, with gangly limbs and a sort of pathetic whimper (he _did_ nearly get brained with an office implement) but Amy is too focused on the hysteric shop owner and the damaged property and Rosa’s suddenly-pale face to go after him. She doesn’t lose her head, though, because she is trained to deal with situations like this, she has done this before, so she barks directions to Charles through her mouthpiece and then turns her attention the shop owner, who is crying, and Rosa, who looks like she’s going to put her good fist through the hole in the wall that the bullet’s already created.

It was supposed to be a simple case, Amy thinks. It still _is_ a simple case. They catch the asshole half a block down the street and book him, and she spends the whole afternoon doing paperwork, which would usually be the most calming thing in the world but she’s doing it in the hospital waiting room and the nice nurse keeps tutting and clicking her fingernails on the counter when she’s bored and it is driving Amy _nuts_.

(It had nothing to do with Jimmy Figgis. _It had nothing to do with Jimmy Figgis_. As far as they know, he hasn’t tried to target Amy once, and so the fact that Rosa had shoved Amy to the side half a second before the gun went off is _just a coincidence_.

Amy repeats this so many times in her head that she ends up writing “coincidence” instead of “incident” twice in her paperwork form. She didn’t think to carry an extra whiteout in her purse, like an idiot, so she has to suffer through the neatly-crossed-out words all afternoon until Rosa emerges from the hospital room with her arm in a sling and looking like she really, really needs a drink.)

“Rosa –”

“It’s fine.”

“But you –”

“Seriously, no stitches.”

Amy tries not to crumple the forms in her hands.

“I just –”

“Santiago,” Rosa’s eyes are unusually soft. Maybe near death experiences do that to a person, Amy thinks, and doesn’t realize she’s said it aloud until Rosa groans and rolls her eyes and punches Amy’s shoulder with her good arm, hard. Amy tries not to wince. “I’m _fine_ , Jesus. The stupid smiley doctor said I could take the bandage off in a week.”

Terry picks them up and somehow talks them into coming to his place for dinner, which is how Amy finds herself curled up in Terry and Sharon’s darkened bedroom, on top of a worn quilt that feels nice and cool against her cheek, after Rosa had narrowed her eyes at her across the couch and said, “Santiago, you look like shit. Sharon, make her lie down.”

Through the crack between the bedroom door and the hallway, Amy can hear the chatter from the living room, steady and nattering. When she left, Gina had been painting Cagney and Lacey’s nails on the floor, Charles and Genevieve had been showing Rosa pictures of the little boy they were planning on adopting, and Kevin had been reading from his pocket Kindle copy of _Othello_ to six month old Ava. She can hear Ava’s excited squealing every couple minutes through the door crack, and the sound of pots and pans in the kitchen where Terry said he was making his famous chicken noodle soup.

“I think it’s a chicken noodle soup kinda evening,” Sharon had told her, voice warm and buttery in a way that made Amy feel out of place, stopping at the foot of the short staircase that led up to the darkened bedroom. “Bed’s made, sweetie, just lie down and take a short nap and I’ll call you when the food’s ready.” Sharon’s face had softened, and she’d squeezed Amy’s arm very lightly before adding, “you really do look like you need the rest.”

If anything, Amy now feels even _more_ guilty for not being able to sleep. Not that she felt guilty before -- she isn't sure what she _was_ feeling, only that it somehow morphed into whatever it is she's feeling now, and either or both or none at all just feel all around miserable.

She is a seasoned cop. She's _seen some shit_ , Rosa'd said, and there is nothing about this situation that should make her react like this, like some lost rookie who's homesick the first day of college.

(Her first day of college, Amy remembers, was markedly better than this, because the moment she started feeling like this she called Luis and Luis called Danny and Ed and she made it past eight pm with the idiocy of her brothers across their Skype call and the sounds of _Simon and Garfunkel_ playing from her old iPod in the background.)

She lays on top of the soft quilt, now, and tries to focus on the orange light leaking in through the doorway, because every time she closes her eyes the bullet was a few inches to the left and Rosa is not on the couch downstairs.

(Just like Jake and Captain Holt aren’t here at all, and she can’t do anything about it, she can’t do anything about it, _she can’t do anythin –_ )

(Amy doesn’t realize she’s hyperventilating until she nearly inhales a mouthful of pillowcase, and this time she forces herself to close her eyes, count to ten – count to ten Amy, count to ten, not here, not now, not here, not now, _not here, not now_ \--)

(The last time, she thinks – the last time this happened, Jake was sitting in front of her and it was his voice doing the counting.

This is not a thought that helps.)

Everything in her head is too loud ( _it has been loud all day, all week, all month_ ), the ache in her chest exploding outwards and threatening to overwhelm her in a way it hasn’t yet ( _yet_ , but it’s been there like a hanging threat since that phonecall), and the creak of the door is not the door at all but the snap of the gunshot and it was all her fault that Rosa nearly got shot because she wasn’t on-task because she was distracted because she’s being scared and pathetic and useless and –

Her breathing has slowed a bit now, somehow morphing into silent tears against Terry and Sharon’s pillows. It's the kind of shaking sobs that make your chest hurt and your shoulders jerk stupidly, and Amy can’t remember the last time she cried. Was it February? March? God, it had to have been over something stupid – allergies, maybe? She’s going to ruin the pillows, and Terry and Sharon are never going to speak to her again, and Amy’s going to have to change her name and move to Peru.

This is her last thought before a warm, dry had slides over her forehead and pushes back her hair, and Amy's eyes fly open in tandem with the hitch of her breath.

Sharon is sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, silhouetted by the light from the hallway; even in the darkness, there is a fierce glint to her eye.

“I’m s-sorry –” Amy begins, half a gasp, but Sharon shushes her gently and continues to push back her hair in firm, warm strokes.

“You got nothing to be sorry about, Amy. You want me to get you a glass of water?”

Amy swallows, only just realizing how dry her throat is, but shakes her head. Something about the skin to skin contact is making her face crumple and her throat close up in a way that it wasn’t doing before, and she buries her face in the pillow, instead. Her shoulders shake, even harder now. Her neck hurts, a bit, but she thinks about Rosa’s arm and decides that her neck is not important, and that she doesn’t know if she can stop crying anytime soon, anyway.

“D’you need to talk about it?” Sharon asks quietly, and when Amy shakes her head again she makes a soft tutting noise. Then:

“‘S my fault,” Amy hears herself croaking into the bedding, her fingers tight and curled around the quilt. “If I’d just –”

“Oh, nuh-uh, don’t you dare,” says Sharon. Behind her, Amy can hear laughter from the living room downstairs. The noise in her head seems to be fading away, like she can’t hold onto it even if she tries, so something in her chest loosens a bit. Her eyes are still blurred with tears when she opens them, though, and she almost keeps her face hidden in the floral bedding, but – Sharon’s hands are careworn from housework and soft with an embodied gentility and grounding with her natural presence.

“Sorry,” Amy whispers, and turns her face so that she’s looking up at the older woman. Sharon’s hair is in a sensible ponytail, bangs a bit messy from helping Terry in the kitchen. Amy can see the curve of her lips tighten.

“I’m not gonna tell you you’re talking nonsense," says Sharon, "because I’ve found that hardly ever helps in situations like this.” There's something inexplicably soothing about the steel that’s suddenly in her tone, Amy thinks, a small, tiny thought. “But I am gonna tell you this. Not one person under my roof gonna deal with this alone while I’m in charge here, you understand? We are going to take care of each other, because that is what friends do.”

Amy gasps on her inhale, only because these tears are the kind that linger, but she nods. Sharon runs a hand through Amy’s hair one more time, and then pulls away and pulls Amy into a sitting position by the elbow. Her cardigan is soft and smelling of lavender and that, too, makes breathing easier.

(Amy misses her mother, and she misses her father, and she misses Jake. She misses so, so many things.)

Sharon hugs her, and Amy presses her face into her shoulder harder than she might have on a different day, holds on for a second longer.

“Hey, is she aw – oh.” Rosa’s lanky frame fills the doorway, and even in the awkward lighting Amy can see the scowl on her face. “Tell me you’re not beating yourself up, Santiago.”

“I’m not beating myself up,” says Amy, words coming out weird and shaky but true. “I’m not, I – I just – got a bit overwhelmed.”

“That’s what the soup is for,” says Sharon firmly. “Bathroom’s two doors to the right, Amy, and I’ll go get you a glass of water now.”

She squeezes Amy’s arm one last time and strides out of the room – Sharon _strides_ , Amy’s come to realize, very recently – smiling at Rosa as she goes. In the doorway, Rosa shuffles from one foot to another, still scowling.

“Hey.”

Amy wipes at her cheek with the back of her hand and can physically feel the mascara smudge. She’s going to have to iron her blouse when she gets home, she thinks, and re-tie her hair in its ponytail in the bathroom.

“What?” It comes out a bit more defensive than she intended, but Amy figures that under the circumstances, it’s forgivable.

“I just –” Rosa makes a noise at the back of her throat. “Getting freaked out doesn’t make you weak, or anything. This stuff’s kind of freaky on normal days, and with all the – the shit that’s been happening.” She shrugs a one-armed shrug, the soft fabric of her tanktop moving with it. “It doesn’t mean you’re not gonna be a dope captain one day, you know?”

 _One breath, two breaths, count to ten_.

“I know,” says Amy, her voice small. And then – “Did you let Cagney and Lacey draw on your sling?”

“Kevin helped,” Rosa grunts, completely serious, lifting her arm very slightly so the light falls on it. “See, there’s Beowulf. It’s hardcore.”

Amy smiles, a bit less tremulous than before, and gets up to go wash her face.

**

September is an unpredictable month – the awful time of year where Amy’s forced to shrug off her jacket the moment the clock hits eleven am, but can’t afford to leave it at home lest she freeze to death in the mornings.

They have leads that are leading nowhere on cases that don’t seem to mean anything, false starts on trails that seem to have no end. It’s been three weeks and Amy’s been living off of the protein bars Charles keeps offering her and fifteen cups of coffee, and there’s been no word at all from Larson or Haas, and she can feel the anxiety tightening around her lungs if the pile of cases on her desk isn’t nearly as tall as Charles is; Terry orders both her and Rosa to take a day off.

“You’ve got bags the size of cruise ships under your eyes,” he says, crossing his arms, “and it won’t help anybody if one of you drops dead of exhaustion anytime soon. Charles and I –” Over Rosa’s croaked-out protest – “ _Charles_ and I will look through the information your CI gave you, Diaz. Go get some sleep.”

Rosa mutters mutinously that she’s going to the bar – no doubt, Amy thinks, to get blackout drunk. It’s hardly the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but hey, Amy can’t summon the willpower to suggest something else to her. Rosa’s energy has been tireless, her support – while somewhat stoic – completely unwavering. She’s been dealing with this for even longer than Amy has; she has the right to drink alone in silence if she wants to instead of taking a nap.

Amy spends her day off printing out photographs and sticky-tacking them to the walls of her apartment.

The cost of printer ink and fancy paper is high, and by the end of the afternoon she has papercuts on all of her fingers. But the space of her new place is empty – _too_ empty, most of Amy’s things still sitting in boxes stacked neatly against the off-white apartment walls. She’s unpacked her clothing and a few fresh binders, and pretty much nothing else; she eats at the precinct, couldn’t cook at home even if she had time _or_ wanted to. Half the time, she’s found napping on the breakroom couch by Charles, and the hours blend into days that are slowly blending into weeks. She can’t remember the last time she reorganized her kitchen, and something about that thought – and the way the bare walls are staring back at her, empty and stinking of Gina’s lingering perfume (admittedly one of the shockingly few downsides to her sleeping on Amy’s couch) and the overwhelming feeling of isolation – spurs her into action.

The pictures should really be framed, Amy thinks, her brain mapping out long-term possibilities and goals and plans as she uses her old paper cutter to get smooth edges on a photo of the squad surrounding Sharon, hours after Ava had been born. They should be framed and hung _properly_ , not put up with the old sticky tack she’s dug out from one of her boxes and dusted off, but there’s no time for framing. No time or energy, and frames are so, so expensive these days, and even though the pile of pictures is massive, she can’t bring herself to discard any of them. She tries not to let her hands shake as she smooths a printout of an old selfie of herself and Jake over the fridge.

Gina alternates between sitting on the couch on her phone blasting Spice Girls tunes from her speakers and helping Amy decide where different pictures should go, declaring that she’s too tired to focus on re-painting her toenails and that Amy clearly needs an artistic eye to help her. (She gives Amy a small smile when they spread the printed items over the wooden table in the kitchen, the corners of her mouth dimpling just slightly.) They put the picture of the squad from last Christmas in the front hallway, and the strip of photo booth snapshots of just Amy and Jake from four summers previous one the cabinets over the kitchen counter. Group selfies featuring Gina and Rosa and Charles decorate the living room, as does a picture of Jake, clearly mid-giggle as the Jeffords twins climb his shoulders, their grins large and filled with childish delight. Amy sticks her favorite picture of herself and Captain Holt above the bare mantelpiece, and a somewhat grainy one of her and Jake, both caught in a hug by the Sarge and flushed and laughing at Shaw’s, is given a space over the oven.

Gina piles all of the post-dating photos into a heap on the kitchen table and tells Amy that they’re going into the bedroom, non-negotiably. Amy grins; the strain around her eyes is tangible, and she’s sucking at another cut on her index finger, but Gina’s making disgusted faces at a badly-shot selfie of Jake kissing Amy’s cheek, and maybe those things are ignorable. Gina’s hair has been tossed over her shoulder upwards of ten times by now, and her sleeves pushed back, and she seems intent on this task in a way that she’s not really been in much else since Jake and Holt left. Amy watches her pull apart the blue tack and absently hum something that she’s sure is Beyonce but could also be Shakira, and pulls out the frame that Karen gave her, of Gina and Jake and the feathery boa. Its presence makes Amy feel odd, as though it somehow solidifies the fact that they’re all family, now.

 _Non-negotiable_ , Gina had said.

Amy decides to hang the picture up by the front door, and asks Gina (who’s still humming and tearing apart sticky tack at the table) if she wants to order some takeout.

Later, at night, when nearly every inch of the apartment is covered in sometimes crooked photos, Amy lies wide awake in her bed and stares at the ceiling. The boxes are still stacked against the wall, outside her room, and tomorrow she’ll be going back into the precinct and burning through more leads, probably also dealing with a hungover Rosa. It’s halfway through the month, but the weather is hot enough in the afternoons that her pantsuits have started feeling uncomfortably warm whenever they go to check out leads.

She lets her tongue slide against her cracked lips in the dark and thinks that she probably hasn’t drank more than two cups of water every day for the past month.

On the other side of the room, the door cracks open. Amy’s head turns, her cheek feeling suddenly cool in the air-conditioned room. A blurry Gina is standing by the bed, holding a pillow and looking down at Amy.

“I just,” she says, shellaqued fingers glinting in the moonlit bedroom as they dig into the pillowcase in her hands. “I dunno. I figured you weren’t sleeping again.”

“Oh,” says Amy, blinking up at her blob-ish outline. “Yeah.”

Gina’s figure shifts slightly in place before she steps forward.

“Scootch.”

“Ugh,” says Amy, and rolls over to the other side ( _Jake’s side_ ) of the bed. Gina tosses her pillow down and crawls in, yanking the bedding over herself unceremoniously and wriggling down to make herself comfortable. They lay shoulder to shoulder and a stray piece of Gina’s hair is tickling Amy’s nose, but she doesn’t really think it’s worth mentioning it.

“This bed is hella comfortable,” says Gina, into the dark.

“It’s just springs and goose hair,” Amy tells her, her arms resting above the sheets.

“Is that his hoodie?” Gina shifts against her arm, poking it, and Amy pouts in the darkness. “Ugh, _God_ , it is. You two are so gross.”

“Shut up.”

“Whatever.” She’s turned away from Amy now, curled up and facing the window on the other side of the room. “Oprah say you gotta embrace this shit. I already have one annoying younger sibling, anyway, and you’re prob’ly gonna get married and have stupidly cute Cuban-Ashkenazi babies and I’m gonna be the most bitchin’ aunt ever.”

Amy groans, kicking out and feeling her toes hit Gina’s ankle. There’s a funny hissing noise, which Amy thinks she should probably avoid causing a second time, so she keeps her feet to herself. Gina’s body is warm and solid beside hers, and Amy’s eyes are still wide open, but she curls her fingers into the blanket covering them and exhales.

“… Gina?”

“Yeah, boo.”

“Thanks.”

A fumbling hand reaches backwards and pats Amy’s collar bone twice. Gina’s voice is mumbled and sleepy in the darkness.

“S’no problem, Ames.”

Amy turns to face the window, the hood of Jake’s sweater cushioning her head, and rests her cheek against Gina’s shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> \- I added a scene posting it here from tumblr -- the scene with sharon, because i really think it was needed. sharon's awesome, always, and it just ... felt right for the fic  
> \- i wanted desperately to add more about amy and rosa's dreams and ambitions -- maybe them having a convo on a stakeout -- but there just wasnt any room. a different fic, maybe.  
> \- this is canon divergence, because of some of the minor details (the apartment, for example), but overall i tried to keep it as in-line with the stuff we learned in s4 about the six months jake and holt were away as i could  
> \- i also tried not to let the focus be TOO MUCH on jake and holt, because this was supposed to be about amy, and about the girls, but of course, being people they really care about, jake and holt missing would be a running theme in amy's internal monologue, which doesnt detract at all from anything else, i dont think.  
> \- listen,,,,, i adore sophia perez. she and amy need to be buddies.  
> \- related: the vulture needs to get coffee dumped on his head, i think  
> \- thank u for reading!!!!


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